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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



MR. JACOBS 



A TALE 



THE DRUMMER THE REPORTER 
AND THE PRESTIDIGITATEUR 



BOSTON 



W. B. CLARKE & CARRUTH 
1883 



00 

i 

45* 



ME. JACOBS 



CHAPTER I. 

In spite of Jean-Jacques and bis 
school, men are Dot everywhere, es- 
pecially in countries where excessive 
liberty or excessive tiffin favors the 
growth of that class of adventurers most 
usually designated as drummers, or by a 
still more potent servility, the ruthless 
predatory instinct of certain bold and 
unscrupulous persons may and almost 
certainly will ; and in those more numer- 
ous and certainly more happy countries 
where the travelling show is discouraged, 



4 MR. JACOBS. 

the unwearying flatterer, patient under 
abstemious high-feeding, will assuredly 
become a roving sleight-of-hand man. 

Without doubt the Eastern portion of 
the world, when an hereditary, or, at 
least, a traditional, if not customary, or, 
perhaps, conservative, not to say legenda- 
ry, or, more correctly speaking, historic, 
despotism has never ceasod to ingrain 
the blood of Russia, Chinese, Ottoman, 
Persia, India, British, or Nantasket, in 
a perfect instance of a ruthless military 
tiffin, where neither blood nor strategem 
have been spared. 1 

I was at tiffin. A man sat opposite 

1 The editor was here obliged to omit a score of pages 
in which the only thing worth preserving was a carcanet 
of sulphur springs. 



MR. JACOBS. 5 

whose servant brought him water in a 
large goblet cut from a single emerald. 
I observed him closely. A water-drinker 
is always a phenomenon to me ; but a 
water-drinker who did the thing so 
artistically, and could swallow the fluid 
without wincing, was such a manifesta- 
tion as I had never seen. 

I contrasted him with our neighbors at 
the lunch-counter, who seemed to be 
vying, like the captives of Circe, to 
ascertain by trial who could swallow the 
most free lunch, and pay for the fewest 
" pegs," — those vile concoctions of spir- 
its, ice, and soda-water, which have 
destroyed so many splendid resolutions 
on the part of the Temperance Alliance, — 
and an impression came over me that he 



6 MR. JACOBS. 

must be the most innocent man on the 
road. 

Before I go farther let me try and 
describe him. His peculiarity was that, 
instead of eyes, he had jewels composed 
of six precious stones. There was a 
depth of life and vital light in them that 
told of the pent-up force of a hundred, 
or, at least, of ninety-nine generations of 
Persian magi. They blazed with the 
splendor of a god-like nature, needing 
neither tiffin nor brandy and soda to 
feed their power. 

My mind was made up. I addressed 
him in Gaelic. To my surprise, and 
somewhat to my confusion, he answered 
in two words of modern Hebrew. We 
fell into a polyglot but refined conver- 
sation. 



MR. JACOBS. 7 

" Come aucl smoke," he said, at 
length. 

Slipping into the office of the hotel, 
and ascertaining that there was no 
danger, I followed to his room. 

"I am known as Mr. Jacobs," he 
said. " My lawful name is Abdallah 
Hafiz-ben-butler-Jacobi." 

The apartment, I soon saw, was 
small, — for India at least, — and every 
available space, nook, and cranny, were 
filled with innumerable show-cases of 
Attleboro' jewelry. 

" Pretty showy?" he remarked famil- 
iarly. " I am a drummer." 

"My name is Peter Briggs," I 
replied. "I am a correspondent of the 
Calcutta Jackal." 

"My star!" he said. "That is the 



8 MR. JACOBS. 

dog-star. A sudden thought strikes 
ine," he added. "Let us swear an 
eternal friendship." 

He thereupon told me his entire his- 
toiy, from childhood up. It was inter- 
esting to the last degree, as I had 
thought often before, when I read it in 
various dime novels. 

He ceased speaking, and the waning 
moon rose pathetically, with a curiously 
doleful look, expressive of quiet, but 
deep contempt. 



MR. JACOBS. 



CHAPTER II. 

The next morning I had tiffin. 

I speculated in regard to Mr. Jacobs. 
A long and eventful experience with 
three-card monte men had made me ex- 
tremely shy of persons who begin an 
acquaintance by making confidences ; 
and I wondered why he had taken the 
trouble to make up the stoiy of his life, 
to relate to an entire stranger. Still, 
there was something about the man that 
seemed to promise an item for the Calcutta 
Jackal, and therefore, when Jacobs ap- 
peared, looking like the sunflower, for 
all his wild dress and his knee-breeches, 
I felt the " little thrill of pleasure," so 



10 MR. JACOBS. 

aptly compared by Swinburne to the 
clutch of a hand in the hair. 

"Are you married?" queried Mr. 
Jacobs. 

" Thank heavens, no ! " I replied, con- 
vulsively. " Are you? " 

" Some," returned he, gloomily. " I 
have three. They do not agree. Do 
you think a fourth wife would calm 
them?" 

"A man," I observed, sententiousVy, 
" is better off with no wife at all than 
with three." 

His subtle mind caught the flaw in- 
stantly. 

" Negative happiness," he murmured ; 
"very negative. Oh, I would I could 
marry all the sweet creatures!" 

Having our tiffins saddled, we rode off 



MR. JACOBS. 11 

at a breakneck pace, and cleverly man- 
aged to ride down the uncle of the 
heroine. 

" Dear uncle," casually remarked that 
young lady, riding up, " I hope you are 
not hurt." 

"What an original remark!" ex- 
claimed Jacobs, with rapture. "Miss 
Eastinhoe is beautiful and sensible. I 
like her. What do you suppose she is 
worth ? ' ' 



12 ME. JACOBS. 



CHAPTER III. 

Having tiffined, we reclined upon a 
divan. 

" My father," said Mr. Jacobs, " had 
but one wife ; I have already raised him 
two, as I told you, and mean to go him 
one better." 

I smoked in silence. 

" A hint for the Calcutta Jackal" I 
thought, with satisfaction. " Bigamy 
raised to the third power." 

"You are right," he said, slowly, his 
half -closed eyes fixed on his feet ; " yes, 
you are right. But why not? " 

I shook myself, drank some sherbert, 
and kicked off one shoe impatiently. 



MR. JACOBS. 13 

This readiDg of a gentleman's private 
thoughts seemed to me an unwarrantable 
impertinence ; but a sudden light flashed 
over my obscured intellect, and, observ- 
ing that he was in a trance, I felt it 
would be indelicate to argue the matter. 
I fired my shoe at him, to assure myself 
of his condition, and then held a free 
pass towards him. He instantly re- 
covered, and stretched out his hand to 
take it. 

"I must have been dreaming," he 
said, a look of annoyance shading his 
features as I drew the pass away. " But 
I am in love." 

It was near midnight, and the ever- 
decreasing moon was dragging herself 
up, as if ashamed of her waning beauty 
and tearful look. 



14 MR. JACOBS. 



CHAPTER IV. 



We called upon Miss Eastinhoe the 
following day. She was playing 
with a half-tamed young tiffin, a charm- 
ing little beast, with long gray fur and 
bright twinkling eye, mischievous and 
merry as a gnome's. He was a gift of 
Mr. Jacobs to the lady. He cost 
nothing. 

' ' Are you spoken for ? " Miss East- 
inhoe asked, her eyes opening a moment 
and meeting his, but falling again in- 
stantly with a change of color. 1 

1 The editor had his douhts about this ; but as it so 
stands in the original MS. (p. 69), concludes that in low 
latitudes, eyes do change color on slight provocation. 



MR. JACOBS. 15 

" Miss Eastiuhoe," he said, quietly, 
" you know I am a man of mnscle, and 
that I have three wives." 

"Oh, I had forgotten ! " she said ; " I 
forgot about your wives." 

"Among primitive people, and per- 
sons in pinafores," I interposed, " mar- 
riage is a social law." 

"You surprise me, Mr. Briggs," she 
said, with an air of childlike simplicity. 

I felt that I had put a plug into my 
end of the conversation. 

" We will play polo next week," said 
Mr. Jacobs. " Meanwhile, let us visit 
a Certain Mighty Personage." 



16 MR. JACOBS. 



CHAPTER V. 



"We will go at four," said Jacobs, 
coming into my room after tiffin. "I 
said three this morning, but it is not a 
bad plan to keep natives waiting." 

"Why do we go?" I inquired, 
languidly. 

" The Certain Mighty Personage has 
a prisoner whom I wish to purchase." 

"Who is it?" 

Leaning over until his mouth almost 
touched my ear, he whispered quietly : 

" Number One." 

"The devil, you say!" I ejaculated, 
surprised out of grammar and decorum 
by the startling news. 



MR. JACOBS. 17 

" Are you thinking of marrying Miss 
Eastinhoe?" I demanded, after a pause 
of some tiffins. 

"Yes," he answered, "if her settle- 
ments are satisfactory." 

Arrived at the residence of the 
Certain Mighty Personage, we were 
received in a jemadar where a sahib 
charpoyed the sowans and tiffined the 
mah-irajah. 

" I'll have you exposed in the 
newspapers," said Jacobs, sternly, to 
the Certain Mighty Personage, " if 
} T ou do not deliver into my hands, 
before the dark half of the next 
moon, the man Number One." 

The Uncertain Might} 7 Personage 
signed a contract to that effect, with 
extreme reluctance, and with many 



18 MR. JACOBS. 

forcible remarks disrespectful to both 
the ancestors and posterity of Jacobs. 

" What do you want of Number 
One?" I inquired, as we rode away. 

" He is the only man alive that can 
keep a plated watch from turning black 
in this accursed climate.'' 

"But why did you bring me along, 
when you didn't need me?" 

" To frighten him with the threat 
of the Calcutta Jackal. Besides, how 
else could you tell the story?" 



MR. JACOBS. 19 



CHAPTER VI. 

We rode our tiffins back and met 
Miss Eastinhoe with her friends. 

" Let us go on a tiger-hunt," we 
all remarked, casually. 

As we drove home a voice suddenly 
broke on the darkness. 1 

"Peace, Abdallah Hafiz," it said. 

" By the holy poker, the Jibena- 
inosay ! " answered Jacobs, who had 
recognized the broken voice. 

' ; I have business with thee," con- 
tinued the voice ; " I will be with thee, 
anon." 

1 Another curious Oriental phenomenon, not suffi- 
ciently explained by the author. 



20 MR. JACOBS. 

"It is Lamb Ral," my companion 
explained, as the voice faded away. 
' ' Facetious as ever ; now you have 
him, and then again you don't have 
him. We call him the Little Joker, for 
short." 

"Isn't he difficult to explain?" I 
ventured. 

"Very," he said. "But who has 
ever explained how a man could keep 
his family up for years with no visible 
means of support ; or how a person 
can promenade on his ear ; or crawl into 
a hole and pull the hole in after him. 
And yet you have seen those things, 
I have seen them, everybody has seen 
them, and most of us have done them 
ourselves." 



MR. JACOBS. 21 

Later in the evening we were visited 
by Lamb Ral. 

" Do not go tiger-hunting," he said. 
" It will take you out of the lines of the 
jewellery trade." 

" Still I shall go," persisted Jacobs. 

u What a singular piece of workman- 
ship is that ytaghan ! " observed Lamb 
Ral, waving one delicate hand towards 
the wall behind us. 

When we turned back from seeing 
that there was no ytaghan there, the 
magician had disappeared, leaving a 
strong smell of lucifer matches behind 
him, but taking a number of triple-plated 
watches. 

" Singular man," said Jacobs, mus- 
ingly. " I wish I knew how he does it. 
It must be profitable." 



22 MR. JACOBS. 



CHAPTER VH. 

We had tiffin with Miss Eastinhoe. 
Mr. Jacobs, in evening dress, looked sur- 
passingly lovely. 



MR. JACOBS. 23 



CHAPTER VIII. 

In the third game of polo a clumsy 
player struck Mr. Jacobs on the back of 
his head, laying open his skull. The 
wounded man fell from his saddle, but 
his foot caught in the stirrup, and he was 
dragged several miles by the infuriated 
Arab pony. 

"Don't give him brandy," remarked 
Miss Eastinhoe, calmly. u Water will do 
quite as well. It is cheaper, and as he 
is insensible, he will not know the dif- 
ference." 

"Thank you," replied Jacobs, grace- 
fully tying his head together with a 



24 MR. JACOBS. 

white woollen shawl. " We will start 
on the tiger hunt to-morrow. " 

He carefully lighted a cigarette and 
rode home. 

" Briggs," Jacobs said, producing a 
nrrsterious trick bottle, " do as I tell 
you or you are a dead man. Stuff this 
wax into your nose, and bathe the back 
of my neck with this powerful remedy 
unknown to your Western medicine. I 
shall then fall asleep. If I do not wake 
before midnight, I shall sleep until 
breakfast time. You can easily arouse 
me by pressing the little silver knob 
behind my left ear. If you cannot 
remember, write it down." 

Being a newspaper man, I naturally 
took out an old letter upon which to 
jot down his instructions. I faithfully 



MR. JACOBS. 25 

carried out all his directions, and it is 
to be remarked in passing that on 
removing the wax from my nostrils, I 
was conscious of a strong odor of 
Scotch whiskey. 



26 MR. JACOBS. 



CHAPTER IX. 

We started on our tiger-hunt. Miss 
Eastinhoe rode on an elephant, about 
which Jacobs, who loved the saddle, 
circled gayly, keeping up a ' fire of 
little compliments and pretty speeches 
of which he had thoughtfully brought 
a tiffinful with him, but to which the lady 
very fortunately soon became inured. 
He had also taken the precaution to 
have rela3 r s of runners bring fresh 
roses half-wa} 7 across India every 
morning for Miss Eastinhoe, whom he 
amused meantime by playing beau- 
tifully on the tiffin and warbling 
Persian love-songs. 



MR. JACOBS. 27 



CHAPTER X 

Guided only by a native tiffin, upon 
whom he showered an astonishing pro- 
fusion of opprobrious epithets, Mr. 
Jacobs went forth in the dark and stilly 
night, and slaughtered a huge man- 
eating tiger, for whose ears Miss East- 
inhoe had expressed a singular, but 
well-defined longing. The beast meas- 
ured twenty-four feet, and by stretching 
the story a little, I was able to say 
twenty-seven. 

"My dear fellow," I said, "I am 
sincerely glad to see you back alive." 

" Thank you, old man," he said, 
falling easily into English slang. " Do 



28 MR. JACOBS. 

you know I have a superstition that I 
must fulfil every wish of hers. Besides, 
the skin will fetch a capital price." 

" I adore you," murmured Miss 
Eastinhoe. " I shall have the ears 
pickled." 



MR. JACOBS. 29 



CHAPTER XT. 

An old yogi stood near an older well. 
He put a stone in the bucket, and the 
slave could not draw it up. Suddenly 
the bottom came out, and the stout water- 
carrier fell headlong backwards on the 
grass. 

"Did you ever see anything of that 
kind before, Miss Eastinhoe?" I in- 
quired. 

"No, indeed," she replied. "I al- 
ways before supposed that to fall head- 
long a man must go forwards." 

"lam off to see a Certain Mighty 
Personage," Mr. Jacobs remarked, stoop- 
ing casually from his saddle to kiss Miss 



30 MR. JACOBS. 

Eastinhoe on her white gold hair, which 
shone so that it made the moon look, on 
the whole, rather sickly, as an electric 
light pales the gas-jet. " If I want you, 
I'll send for you. Lamb Eal has a Star 
Route contract and will bring you word." 
He rode away, and I pensively smoked 
nry tiffin. 



MR. JACOBS. 31 



CHAPTER XII. 

The afternoon mail brought me a 
postal-card : 

" I shall want you after all. Please 
ride night and day for a week. It is a 
matter of life and death." 

Changing horses every five or six 
miles, I rode over the greater part of Asia, 
subsisting on a light but elegant diet of 
chocolate caramels. Then I stopped to 
take tiffin with a striking-looking fellow 
in a dirt3 r brown cloth caftan. Jacobs' 
face changed when I gave him a silver 
box Miss Eastinhoe sent him. 

' ' I gave her this myself ; " he said ; ' ' it 
is only plated." 



32 MR. JACOBS. 

"Mr. Briggs," interposed Lamb Hal, 
with decision, " we are about to go 
down into the valley. If you see any 
man attacking Mr. Jacobs, knock him 
down. If you cannot do that, shoot him 
under the arm. At any rate dispose of 
him. I am not Wiggins, but I predict a 
storm." 



MR. JACOBS. 33 



CHAPTER XIII. 

After tiffin we went down into the val- 
ley to meet the emissary of a Certain 
Mighty Person and Number One. The 
emissary advanced with a scroll so 
illegible that Jacobs bent over it in de- 
spair. Taking advantage of his absorp- 
tion, the villain put his hand upon my 
friend's shoulder. I sprang upon him 
like a bull- dog. 

Meanwhile Lamb Ral created a pleas- 
ant diversion by drawing down from the 
sky a blood-curdling fog, heavier than 
the after-dinner speech of an alderman, 
more dense than the public taste, more 
paratyzing than the philosophy of the 



34 MR. JACOBS. 

last popular novel. Dread and cottony, 
like a curtain, descended the awful cloud 
into the uplifted arms of the sleight-of- 
hand man, until I could not see an inch 
before my nose. Nevertheless I was 
able to observe that he had stretched 
himself, probably by an arrangement of 
crossed levers, to an incalculable 
height, and I distinctly observed him 
wink with one e} T e as I kneaded my 
adversary. 

As I had just snapped the arm of 
the emissary like a pipe-stem and the 
rest had each killed somebody, the mist 
was opportune and our party skulked 
back to camp, where we all drank a 
good deal of tiffin. The result of our 
imbibing was that Jacobs clapped Num- 
ber One on the shoulder. 



MR. JACOBS. 35 

" You're a bully good fellow," he ob- 
served, thickly. " Git!" 

Lamb Ral and Number One disap- 
peared in a red light, with plaintive 
music from the orchestra. 



36 MR. JACOBS. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

We returned home. 

" Miss Eastinhoe is dead ! " I said to 
Mr. Jacobs. 

" It is really better," remarked Lamb 
Ral, who chanced to be astrally present, 
being also in Ireland with Number One 
at the same moment. " There was 
absolutely no other way of concluding 
the story. She wouldn't be a fourth 
wife ; besides, she was so shadowy a per- 
sonage that nobody cared anything 
about her." 

" No," said Mr. Jacobs. " I had 
wholly forgotten that." 

"You had better go and be a nun," 



MR. JACOBS. 37 

Lamb Ral continued, reclining upon a 
tiffin. "Trade is dull, and your last 
trick in glass emeralds has been discov- 
ered." 

"On the whole I think I will," replied 
Jacobs. "Briggs, I have given my for- 
tune to Miss Eastinhoe's brother, who 
rescued me from the gutter. To 3^011 I 
give this diamond. I know you too well 
to trust you with anything else. Nay," 
he added, seeing my inquiring look, 
" do not ask its price or try it with a file 
until I am gone." 

" You won't come and be a nun your- 
self, Mr. Briggs?" Lamb Ral inquired, 
with some apprehension. 

" Thanks, no," I answered, drawing 
my tiffin over my shoulders, " I'll write 
the thing up." 



38 MR. JACOBS. 

- " Thank you, noble friend," Jacobs 
said, grasping my hand with emotion. 
' ' You have been the instructor and the 
genius of my love. I go to be a nun. 
Be yourself what you have made me." 
One last, loving look, — one more pres- 
sure of the reluctant fingers, and those 
two went out, hand in hand, under the 
clear stars, and I saw them no more*- 



MR. JACOBS. 39 



POSTSCRIPT. 

I afterwards ascertained that the 
fortune left to Mr. Eastinhoe consisted 
chiefly of the three discarded wives of 
Mr. Jacobs. 

" I had no means of supporting 
them," Mr. Eastinhoe remarked, gravely, 
— he was from Bombay, and Bombay 
men never smile, — "sol was forced to 
have them served for tiffin. What will 
you take?" 

"A peg of tiffin," I replied, with a 
pensive sigh. 

FINIS. 



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